FlowyYQ wrote:

Not sure how to vote in the poll here
Anyways i played in the march edition
My opinion is that, the idea is great, but the execution is a bit off somehow
The maps weren't very well balanced, Guilty all the same i remembered being completely free to SS and i remembered struggling to pass another map.
Another issue was the fact that nobody else besides me in the bracket actually submitted to win. I mean yeah i submitted at the very end but that was just me trying to derust before i submitted my scores.
I think that's about it really, i didn't participate for the rewards but was interested with the concept

Just pick the option that best fits with your opinion on the challenges you've seen and/or played in. I don't claim that I made an exhaustive list of options, but I can't really think of any others that are distinctive enough from the ones I have up there right now.

With the March challenge, I was going more for finding mapsets that could be used across all available brackets; in other words, maps that had 1*, 2*, 3*, 4*, 5* and/or 6*+ maps (or some combination thereof). There are unfortunately very few maps that were both 5 minutes+ and cover all those SR's at the same time, so the ones that did were likely going to be very disparate in difficulty. Although, at your level I think it's still kinda expected that one 4-5* map will be almost impossible while another will still be fairly easy given that it's a 4-5*.
Given that, I'm pretty sure next March (if I get to next March in this) will be a more "generalized" mapset; one that is A.) more agreed-upon by the people in the bracket for the actual competition maps, and B.) would hopefully have a less disparate difficulty difference even if their skillsets would be different.

As for the other issue, I can try my best to prod people as often as possible, but I can't do much about people just not responding to my prods or submitting scores. I think that the structure for this recent April challenge is a lot better both for others to be active and for me to keep track of others and prod them to submit a score when necessary. I had a feeling this would be the case, but I still wanted to try the more "open" style of the first three challenges to see if that would be better or different.

flareling22 wrote:

i think more of a tournament-style mappool would be better, as well as the maps being much easier for all brackets so the goal would be to ss all the maps and not just get good acc (like in January's challenge)

a typical tournament mappool, if you didn't know, has each map paired with a specific mod combo (for example, 4 maps that must be played with NM, 2 that must be played with HD, and so on). a range of skillsets get tested (consistency, aim, streams, tech, speed, etc), and the maps are pretty much balanced in difficulty, so tech maps would usually have much lower SR than jump maps

also, since some people can't acc, i think there can be bonus points for FC'ing as well, and then more bonus points for an SS

I do think one issue I have is a large deficit in being able to judge both what a map's particular skillset would be (unless it's really obvious such as Tower of Heaven (You are Slaves) which is exclusively a burst/stream map) and how difficult the map is, whether in relation to that skillset or just on it's own. As I've stated before, it's impossible for me to do so for anyone in the 5*+ brackets, and to an extent the 4-5* brackets because I don't have to skills to actually plays those maps and I think that I need to be able to play them in order to have an opinion.
That's in part why I kinda find 3* maps to be the "easiest" to judge for me: They aren't too difficult that I can't judge if they're too hard or too easy, but they also aren't too easy that their difficulty blends together and I can't tell one map apart from another.
Given that I may not be able to touch high 5*+ maps in the near future, it might be wise to find a couple people who can easily play at least 5-7* maps who can help source that variety for me (or sift through maps in a specifc theme). Or who I can send a list of maps and they can point out "Hey, this one's a fair bit harder than the rest" or something. Dunno how I'd set it up, though.

I think that being able to show different skillsets would be an improvement, but I actually don't really agree with giving them specific mod combos. There'll be an exception for May as that month is going to be for mod madness, or for challenges that are based on specific themes, but on the more "usual" challenges such as April's where the theme is about a more external concept to the map (it's length, or based around Valentine's day/Christmas/Summer/etc.) it seems a bit constrictive to me. My main encouragement is basically always going to be SS's over mod variety, but I don't want to limit people to just NM if they like or are better-versed in, say, HR or DT. Plus, at least with how it's set up right now, I like the..."disparity"? (not the right word, but I can't think of it) of someone who plays NM and has a bad acc, while someone plays with HRHD and has a better acc. I don't really know how to describe that right now. It just...seems like it "looks" better to me, as a means of getting people to try for higher acc. or just better in general?

however, I also think I could either be heavily biased or not seeing the same thing as the people competing do, so I'd like some more input on that.


As for giving bonuses for FCs, I think that's worth looking at. Might be something I implement in June.

Biess4 wrote:

(I played in February and March)
Maybe there are some things to work out about the structure and score posting especially to make it less tedious. Otherwise great challenge, I don't go for the reward since I already bought myself supporter. I may participate in the future again. Thank you for doing this, there are usually far less people who are willing to step up and create and provide something and try than people who consume the content (not necessarily negative but it is how it is).

If you could elaborate on what you feel is wrong/off about the structure? And the score posting? I know there are plenty of people who have asked about a discord server, but I just can't really bring myself to think about using it, whether for these challenges in particular or just in general. If it's for something important personally like therapy, that's one thing, but outside of that I just don't see an incentive. Also, the way it's set up now doesn't seem that tedious to me, so if you could also explain a bit more about what makes it tedious I'd appreciate that.

I would freely admit I'm more of a content consumer than producer, not to mention a lack of self-confidence in starting stuff in the first place. I'm honestly very pleasantly surprised at myself for starting a challenge back in January in the first place, as well as keeping this going for multiple months. But, I also think there's a certain amount of momentum that comes from starting it where I think that if I stopped for a month or two I'd find it nearly impossible to try again.

jer1cs wrote:

Theyre fun but i think you should have a goal other than SS'ing for your challenge like maybe choosing challenge maps that gives some bonus points for a FC (amount depending on acc)
Maybe set a reward for getting a certain amount of bonus points(seperate from normal points) instead for SS'ing, so more people try for them.
You could also give bonus points to high acc scores to encourage players to push acc on submitted scores

Also i think a tournament style mappool would make the challenge more appealing to the tourney side of the forums at least for the higher brackets.

You mean something like what I did for March where you got bonus supporter for FCing or SS-ing the bonus marathon maps you picked? I'm just checking if that's something that fits with what you're suggesting here, but I can't really think of any other ways to do that. I also don't want to detract from the main focus of getting SS's in the first place, although I think it's a fair argument I haven't been trying to push that as much as I could. Plus, how would I do the "give some bonus points depending on acc" thing, for example? Is it just a linear thing (+1 at FC with 95%, +2 for 96%, etc.) or what?

I'm not sure I get what your second paragraph is suggesting. The third paragraph seems to be similar to what you suggested in the first, so I'd appreciate some more elaboration there.

As for the last bit, it's the same as what I said to lucky/Flare. I don't have the ability to judge things at higher SR's, so I'd likely need someone to help me with that. Even then, I don't think that just making a tourney-style pool will be enough. The April challenge wasn't the exact same, but I think it's the most similar to that style, and even then only two of the 6-8 people who signed up from the tourney side (seemingly) stayed until Round 8, and only one remains to finish the challenge for the month. Sure, it could be they signed up and forgot, but...